Here to Help
by broken-inside-x
Summary: Cristina struggles with a patient, finding help in someone she'd never expected.


"Charging 300"

"Clear"

Her arms shook with the power that shot through the paddles she was holding and into the body of the patient lying on the bed in front of her. This wasn't even her patient. She'd been waiting for her own patient's lab results to come back at the nurses' station, sipping idly at the bitter coffee that Owen had dropped off to her before finishing his shift, promising to see her back at her place later. She'd been there only 10 minutes before she'd heard the code blue being called from within a patient's room further down the hall and, as any good doctor would do, she dropped the coffee and ran straight for the room. Blood pounded through her ears and the adrenaline began pumping like it always did when a life was in danger. This, saving lives, was what she was born to do.

As the only doctor in the room and on the floor in seemed, she quickly took over, calling for the code team to hurry up and ordering the nearest nurse to lower the head of the patient's bed.

"Dammit!" she cursed; the patient still lay unresponsive in front of her. "Charging 360… Clear!"

The surge of power went through her again, wracking her tiny body with the remains of the shock that had nowhere to go but through her. The small shock went unnoticed however as a steady heartbeat filled the room followed by a sigh of relief from the nurses that had gathered to help.

Dropping the paddles back on to the cart that a nurse was about to pull out of the room, her hands began fluttering to various point on the patient's body, first his wrist, then his neck, listening closely for the sounds of even breathing before pulling her stethoscope from around her neck.

"Vitals are stable" she muttered to herself as the room began to clear out, one nurse remaining behind to hand over the patients chart.

"How do you want to proceed Dr Yang?"

Cristina faintly noted that the nurse had a slightly annoying voice, an octave too high for such a late hour at night, too chirpy. She took the chart anyway, her fingers gripping it tightly as she gave the patients monitors one last glance before opening the chart.

The first thing she noted was Shepherds name at the top, seemed the guy was one of McDreamy's patients and she sure as hell was going to be the one to let one of his miracle patients die.

Her eyes gazed over the rest of the chart and, after shaking her head several times, she barked at the nurse to page Shepherd a 911, remembering that Meredith had mentioned he was on call tonight.

"Dr Yang?" the nurse questioned before sensing better and leaving the room in a rush before Cristina could open her mouth to yell.

Protocol allowed her to treat a patient that had coded appropriately if his/her doctor wasn't in attendance, she knew that and the nurse clearly knew that. She could give this patient immediate treatment to prevent him from coding again, that's what she should have been doing.

Instead she could feel the colour drain from her face and knew her knuckles had turned white from gripping the chart she was still staring intently at. Deciding that crushing the chart would do her little good, she ran her hands through her wild curls before checking the patient's vitals again. His wrist, his neck, his chest.

"Stable…everything's stable"

The guy was young; his hair not yet tainted with grey and the only lines around his mouth being laughter lines. He was someone's child, a husband maybe, a father.

"Where the hell is Shepherd?" she muttered angrily to herself as she crossed the room to check the monitors, reassuring herself that the patient was not dying…yet.

This guy couldn't die, not now and not like this. She was supposed to save lives; she was supposed to treat patients like this, to know what to do. Cristina had spent nearly all of her life studying for moments like these. After that terrible day when she'd been nine years old, too young to know any better and her hands too small to keep the most important person in her life alive, she'd done everything she knew how to keep that helpless feeling at bay.

"Dr Yang?"

"Thank God!" she sighed in relief as she pushed the patients chart into Derek's hands a little too aggressively by the looks on his face. She gave a sharp glance at the nurse who had trailed in behind Shepherd, both grateful and disappointed when the stricken looking woman bolted from the room without even a second thought, where was her spine!?

The door clocked shut behind her and Cristina began pacing the room, watching as Derek's eyes scanned the monitors and then as he reminded himself of the patient's diagnosis from the chart that had so assertively been shoved at him.

"Mark Young, 25, aggressive brain tumour in the right temporal lobe. Successful surgery." He mused as he looked up at her in confusion, his brows knit together and one eyebrow raised in a way that was so McDreamy. "So what's the issue?"

"I…I can't…you need…" she stuttered, her hands rooted firmly in her hair as she turned to face him, her eyes imploring him to just get it.

She liked Derek, she really did. They'd been getting on so well after he'd married her person and after helping her through the aftermath of the shooting he'd kind of become one of her people. He'd never be her person, her soul mate, that was reserved for Meredith but never once did she regret facing down that gun to keep him alive. They were family now. The words still stuck in her throat though, her mind reeling from the blow that she couldn't put into words.

"Cristina…what's wrong?" he gripped her shoulders, his hands gentle even if he was beginning to panic at the rare tears that had begun to form in her eyes before she blinked them away and pulled herself out of his grasp.

"Just treat the patient. He coded, I brought him back. Treat him!" she stammered, her voice shaking and her eyes still flittering between the patients face and the different monitors.

"You didn't...you didn't treat the dying patient!?" Derek yelled, rushing to the patient's side to do a more thorough exam. "How could you not treat a dying man? I didn't think you were that cold! You know what, never mind Cristina…just get out!"

Tears stung her eyes once again. Logically she knew that Derek was just angry his miracle was dying slowly, she knew that he wasn't this cruel. Instead of explaining though, instead of standing there while he prepared an IV drip with some form of medication that would help the patient survive, she walked out and headed towards the vent that had always been hers and Owens special place, certain that no-one would ever find her there as she gave in to the embarrassing tears that had been threatening to spill over her cheeks since the patient had stabilised.

* * *

It was almost an hour later the Derek pushed the door to the boiler room open. He'd half expected Hunt to be pulling his leg and he'd find the room empty and a laughing Owen on the other end of a phone but no, there she was, curled up at the back of the room drying her cheeks on the sleeve of the shirt she had on underneath her scrubs. Just as Owen had said she would be before hanging up to head over to the hospital.

"Hunt said you'd be down here" he said as way of explaining how he'd found her in her secret place as she stood up, ready to walk past him and away from the hurt she shut up in this room he'd never even heard about.

"It's ok; unless you're going to yell at me for being such an incompetent doctor then we don't have to have this…"

"You couldn't read the chart could you?" he interrupted her before she could continue with what she had clearly hoped would be an easy and uncomplicated get away for both of them. He watched her pale and her hands begin to fidget. Dejectedly, she sunk back to the floor where she'd been curled up when he found her. Derek contemplated staying where he was, leaving her to work through whatever was running through her mind on her own. He knew he'd already messed up big time, there was no way Meredith was ever going to let him forget this, and he knew that trying to comfort Cristina Yang was like trying to tame a wild lion, almost impossible. The need to comfort her in some way won out though and he warily crossed the room, avoiding the metal grate he was sure was some kind of venting system and wondering what kind of safe place this could ever be for someone, before he landed heavily in the space next to her just as she began to speak.

"I'm…"

"Dyslexic. I know. Hunt explained" Derek breathed and his hand shot out of its own accord and gripped hers. He watched as his own knuckles turned white, as hers had done earlier, with the force behind which he gripped her nimble fingers, swamping them with his own, even as she tried and failed to pull away. He rushed to carry on and explain what would surely feel like a betrayal from Owen. When he'd rang Hunt hoping for an explanation as to the erratic behaviour of someone he knew to be such a composed, often to the point of detached, resident he hadn't expected to hear that the famous Cristina Yang, the most educated surgeon on the residents program, was dyslexic, something she'd clearly gone to great lengths to hide. "Worst comes to worst and you can't read the chart, which apparently isn't often, he helps you out and then you memorize them. My patients chart you wouldn't have seen beforehand and he wasn't there to help you. And today…today was an unusual occasion because today you couldn't read the chart"

"The chief knows, it's on my file and it doesn't happen very often. I've learnt to deal with it." she sighed, her eyes still trained on her shoes. "It almost never happens anymore and when it does, Owen's always there…"

"Today… I let you down Cristina and for that I'm sorry"

Her head shot up, like he'd known it would have, and her eyes searched his face for signs of lies.

"If I know anything about you Cristina…it's that no matter what I say to you now you will always believe this to be a weakness…a loose brink in that famous wall you build around yourself but if you ever need help, and Hunt's not around, I'll be there. Ok?"

She nodded her head slightly, her unruly curls bouncing, as she swiped angrily at her cheeks. A small smile and a whispered thank you was all he had to show that she'd acknowledged his promise to her but that was ok because they were family. They were tied with the memory that she'd stood, with a bullet to her head and her tiny hands in his chest, and saved his life. He knew, and so did she, that that had not been just because he was her person's husband, there was always more to Yang. With that he turned to slip back out of the room, content to leave her now that she knew she could rely on him to keep her secret.

"The patient didn't die, and he isn't going to anytime soon, turns out he simply couldn't breathe so he's been intubated and we're just waiting for the scans of his lungs to come back but he should be perfectly fine. You didn't kill anyone today Yang" he grinned at her as he stood up, pretending to ignore the dark eyes that she rolled and the small smile that spread slowly across her face. "Oh and by the way" he called over his shoulder "Hunt was on his way when I rang. Shouldn't take him long because my bet is that our very own Army badass is at your place"

He shot her an over exaggerated wink and pulled the door open as she shot him a pointed look, one that clearly told him she didn't appreciate his messing in her life. Not that that was going to stop him from having a chat with Hunt about Cristina and what he could expect if he ever hurt her.

"Great, you've set off his saviour complex. Thanks a lot Shepherd!"

He grinned at the sarcastic response that was typically Cristina, glad that she was turning back into herself even if her tone was less sharp than usual, before turning and shutting the door behind him.

Cristina Yang would be ok.


End file.
